Interactive, fun and holidays that create memories

LIFE was simpler in the old days. And without all the electronic devices today’s children rely on to be entertained, we managed to have a lot of fun.

We rode our bicycles everywhere, sans helmets. We played outside in all weather conditions and were mostly barefoot.

We climbed trees, played tennis and cricket in the streets and had well developed people skills as a result of negotiating terms and conditions of play with the neighbourhood children.

ALSO READ: Five gifts to give for Christmas when you are broke

If there was a fight or dispute, we sorted it out among ourselves and would not dream of involving an adult.

There was a clearer, defining line between parents and children. Parents were the authority and children played outside creating their own rules of engagement and fun.

Cook and bake
Back in the day, we survived the long holidays by cooking and baking the Christmas fare ourselves. So this is one way to keep guests and children busy. Each one can research and produce a recipe. Another ploy of mine was to ask guests to make their “signature” favourite dishes which one can add to one’s own tired menu.
I also asked everyone to make a dish suitable for a picnic and then haul the family, guests and the dog to a suitable place to relax in the great the outdoors and relish the home-made picnic fare.
Take a soccer ball, a badminton set if it’s not windy, magazines, books including nature books. You can ask children to collect a selection of items such a bird’s feather, a pebble, a leaf etc to keep them busy and make them aware of nature. They can also jot down sounds they hear, smells and so on in nifty little notebooks.

It never rains bit it pours
When the rain comes down, haul out the board games. Monopoly has recently launched its Durban edition and I applaud this as games encourage face-to-face interaction among family members and friends.
Again you can all organise snacks and refreshments before you settle down to play. There’s also Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Risk, Backgammon, Draughts, Pictionary, Cluedo, Battleship, Chess and numerous ones for small children and more modern games available.
And let’s not forget the old card games where many hours of fun and laughter were enjoyed and those huge puzzles with tiny pieces.
Another good investment is table tennis, or ping-pong as we knew it. We found an old door and constructed a table and it provided hours of fun, as does darts for older family members.

Exhume your inner artist
There are so many ways to get creative so don’t restrict yourself. Collages are great fun. From cutting out pictures or coloured pages from magazines and pasting them onto cardboard, to collecting shells, driftwood, seaweed etc from the beach and creating pictures, or gluing shells to picture frames or bottles for lamps…endless.
Fabric paint is relatively cheap and children will love painting on bits of fabric, or painting their hands and feet and making a family picture on an old sheet or tablecloth by “printing” their hands and feet on the fabric.

ALSO READ: DIY Christmas decorations

It’s also great fun to get children to make Christmas decorations: get some paint, ice-ream sticks, pipe-cleaners, glitter, pasta etc and craft some fun decorations.
You can also make stuff with old CDs, records (look it up), corks, bottle tops, fabric scraps…you name it. Guys can get pallet wood and paint and craft from cheese boards and bird feeders to fun signs, books shelves etc.

Get into the garden
During the holidays, you finally have time to enjoy your garden. Get the family to each work on an area and plant away. Create a vegetable and herb garden; you can also use pots, hanging or otherwise. Nurseries give great advice. Collects snips from friends to cut costs and expand your vegetation.

The Highway Mail is publishing a series on indigenous plants to grow, see www.highwaymail.co.za.
Make a spot for the bird feeder you made and add a bird bath and watch the birds flittering around enjoying the water.

Read
There are plenty of second-hand book shops where you can buy books and magazines and get back into reading – the old fashioned way. Not a keyboard in sight.

Get real
The point is to get folk to leave their screens and re-discover the world around them, their skills and talents and that it can be great fun to interact with each other face-to-face. Our busy lifestyles and online media addictions stop us from enjoying each other and discovering our talents. We forget how therapeutic it is to work with our hands, use our imaginations and create lovely things for pure pleasure. Make memories you store in your brain. It defeats the objects if you grab phones to capture every moment to share on social platforms. Don’t! You miss the moments of joy; you disrupt the flow and energy, and break the communication with real people. Turn the thing off.
Happy holidays!

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